Ethnicity: Undetermined

Leaving the US for New Zealand, Bryan and Jane knew that there would be some cultural differences in their new country that might be jarring. Unusual phrases and words, for instance, like "good on ya'", "no worries", and "jandals" were only to be expected in a land that not only separated from Britain centuries after the US did but also existed in relative isolation. Different geography, different people, different culture. The one thing they did not expect was having to try to figure out how to define themselves in relation to this new culture.

Like good British descendents, Kiwis are obsessed with their familial and ethnic identifications. Knowing that your grandfather came from County Cork and settled in New Plymouth while your grandmother came from Glascow and settled in Wellington are your tickets to a past that a country as young and as muddled as New Zealand can't offer you. Once you've figured out your half-Irish, half-Scottish, all-Kiwi identity, though, you then have to reconcile that with the fact that there are 4 million people living around you who are not that at all. After all, New Zealand wasn't an escape just for former Brits and Irish but also for Germans, the Dutch, Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Samoans, Tongans, Fijians, and many others. There's also the native Maori populations to consider. With all of this diversity, it is no wonder that the simple nature of the human mind demands some kind of categorization, some way for people living, for the most part, in a foreign land to figure out who is just like them and who is not. That is where the unique Kiwi classification system comes in.

Bryan and Jane were first introduced to Kiwi ethnic categories when they went to sign up for a medical center. New Zealand, being a proper Socialist state, provides health care to all of its citizens, residents, and people with work visas, but you must register with a particular medical practice before you can reap the minimal benefits of your extraordinarily high taxes. So one day while Bryan was at work, Jane wandered up to a medical practice located in a little house just a few blocks from their home to sign them up. Just like signing up with any doctor, there are forms to fill out, detailing your basic medical history and other relevant information that your medical care provider might need - like your billing address. Jane dutifully ticked the boxes related to family and person medical history but became stumped when asked to check off her's and Bryan's ethnicity. There were only four choices: European, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Maori.

Of course, taking into account the source of this question, the correct response for the Smiths would be European. The medical centers in New Zealand ask this question because the current medical opinion is that different ethnic groups experience disease differently, and so your doctor needs to know what your genetic background is so he/she can treat you appropriately. But the broader implications of such a question made Jane not automatically tick the European box. Hadn't Americans proved through centuries of war and political policy that they were not Europeans? Couldn't Bryan and Jane have different medical problems than Europeans since none of their family had lived in Europe for at least three generations? What about the fact that they were both mutts, both a cornacopia of European ancestries? What if some Native American, Middle Eastern, Asian, or African genes had slipped into their genome at some point in the distant or not so distant past? Would they still be European? After all, whether or not they knew it, all Europeans are actually mutts, the products of a torrid history that many of them would like to forget.

With all of this in mind, Jane decided that it would be irresponsible of her to label herself and Bryan as Europeans, and so she took advantage of the small space at the bottom of the form to draw an arrow from the Ethnicity heading and write in "American."

The Southernmost Capital in the World

Though Bryan's office is located in Parnell, Auckland, the major offices of IRL are in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.  Even to the people of New Zealand, Wellington is not considered to be a city - "more of a big town," is how Bryan and Jane most often heard people describe it.  Wellington is situated at the bottom tip of the North Island along the coast of the Cook Straight and nestled among a ring of volcanoes, making landing a plane a very interesting experience.  To this big town of a capital Bryan took his first business trip in early April.

The big bosses down in Wellington wanted to meet Bryan and his fellow new hire Biswajit.  Upon their arrival on a Thursday, they were given a tour of IRL's offices and labs and introduced to their Kiwi counterparts there.  Later in the day they gave twenty-minute presentations of the work that had gotten them hired, or to Bryan's mind, gave mini dissertation defenses.  On Friday, after a day of meetings, Bryan was met in W

ellington by Jane who flew down to spend the weekend with him there.

People had told Bryan and Jane that Wellington was a great town when the weather was nice, but unfortunate

ly, they wouldn't know because it rained and was windy practically the entire time they were there.  The rain and wind, however, did not deter them for getting in a great Wellington experience.  

On the first night, they climbed the highest volcano in Wellington, Mt. Victoria (named for

the queen, of course), and looked out over the city and the Cook Straight toward the South Island.  

The next day, upon waking up to discover that it was again raining, Bryan and Jane spent the morning at Te Papa, the national museum, which bore much in common with the Auckland Museum, just with an emphasis on New Zealand earthquakes instead of on New

Zealand volcanoes; it seems that a fault line runs right through Wellington.

In the afternoon, the sun came out for a bit, and so Bryan and Jane decided to check out the some of the bush surrounding the city.  It only took thirty minutes of walking from the center of the capital to get to the middle of absolutely no where: no buildings, rural roads, and trees as far as one could see.  Could you do the same in Washington, DC or London?

The particular bush walk that Bryan and Jane embarked upon took them over a canopy walk

(a bridge that passed through the canopy of the bush), past a couple waterfalls, over some 

streams and through dense areas of bush.

Deep inside the forest, Bryan and Jane even got to see and touch the North Island's oldest Kauri tree. 

 

When they had completed their circuit through the

Wellington bush, Bryan and Jane caught a bus back into the middle of the capital.  They got off a little before the bus got back to their hotel so that they could check out the

government building, known affectionately (and not so affectionately) as the Beehive or just the Hive.  The Capital Rotunda or the Halls of Parliament it was not, but those buildings wouldn't have fit in in this big town of a capitol.

Beware of the Tides

Having moved into their new apartment in one day and looking forward to two days of vacation, Bryan and Jane decided to head out on Easter Sunday morning to the beach town of Piha.  Located about thirty minutes west of central Auckland, Piha sits on the eastern shore of the Tasman Sea, the body of water that flows between New Zealand and Australia.  People at Bryan's office told him that Piha was the place to go for a day at the beach.  There's even a fairly popular TV program in New Zealand called "Piha Rescues" about the life guards at the beach.  Where could be a better place to spend a late-summer day than there?

The drive out to Piha involved narrow roads that wound up and d

own a series of volcanoes and hills.  Bryan enjoyed whipping their new station wagon around

the bends, while Jane held on to the door for dear life while peering out her window at the jagged ravines below them.  Once they had reached the apex of a particularly

 high hill, Bryan pointed out to his left and said, 

"There, that must be the beach."  And indeed it was - the seemingly endless Tasman Sea roaring out to the west.  Bryan, Jane, and the Corolla curved down the hill toward the black sandy beaches of Piha.

At first sight, it seems that there is something terribly wrong with the beaches of Piha.  Waves crash in three cycles - one about 100 yards out to sea, one about 50 yards out, and one on the shore itself - a product of the mighty waters of the ocean coming into contact with the giant rock formations standing sentinel just off the shore.

Pools of water about 2 or 3 feet deep form along the beach, and little children splash and play in

these mini, waveless oceans.  And then there is the sand: black.  Volcanic material in the soil

around Piha turns the sand into a soft ebony color that heats up intensely in the summer

Southern Hemisphere sun.  Bryan and Jane keep their flip-flops (of jandals, as they are called in New Zealand) as they walk from the parking lot to the beach.

Piha offers much for the visitor.  Bryan and Jane spend the next five hours wading in the shallow waters near the shore to climb the foremost rock formation, riding the powerful waves of the Tasman and attempting to avoid the s

trong currents, and putting on their socks and sneakers to hike the trails through the bush that surround the main beach.  As day slips into dusk, Bryan and Jane get back in the car and head to a more secluded beach, where they walk the wide open vastness of New Zealand's western shore as the sun sets.

Moving In

Driving along American highways, it is not unusual to see billboards ostensibly written by God, proclaiming things like, "Don't make me come down there."  A few days before Easter, a billboard of this ilk appeared in downtown Auckland.  On it was written "I took three days off at Easter too."  Kiwis, you see, get a nice four-day weekend at Easter: Good Friday and Easter Monday are national holidays.  As Bryan began work on the Monday of Holy Week, his first week of work was only four days long followed by a four-day weekend.  Bryan may have thought that this made him God-like, but it must be remembered that God's first week of work was six days long followed by one day off.

That those particular Friday and Monday were holidays

 worked out well for Bryan and Jane for the Saturday in between was their move-in day.  For nearly two weeks they had been living out of their suitcases in hotels around Auckland, first in the cramped Hotel Formulae 1 right downtown and then in the student apartment complex Columbia nearer the University.  They were both looking forward to having a place of their own again, somewhere to come home to, even though they wouldn't have much to decorate the place with seeing as most of their worldly possessions were packed in a container on a boat floating along somewhere in the Pacific.

Most of the shops in town were closed on Good Friday - Kiwis may, over all, be a secular people, but they know how to legislate for a religious holiday.  Bryan and Jane spent much of the day packing up their hotel room, taking a break at 3:30pm to attend services at the Catholic Church in their new neighborhood, St. John's of Parnell (not that the patron St. John was from Parnell but that that is where the church stands - there is no St. John of Parnell, as far as we know).  The church was tiny, holding probably 100 people at most, and that would be pushing it.  The Good Friday service only attracted 20 to 30 people, though, so there was no fear of being overcrowded.  Satisfied enough with the congregation there, Bryan and Jane decided to join them again the next day for Easter Vigil.  As Bryan pointed out, there's was probably the first Easter celebration in the world - 5:30pm in the first time zone.

On Saturday morning, Bryan and Jane awoke early to check out of their hotel (at last!) and run some necessary errands before meeting their new landlord at 4

pm to move into their apartment.  First on the list of necessary things that must move into the apartment with them was a TV followed very closely by a grill.  They also made a stop at the Kiwi Wal-Mart equivalent The Warehouse to pick up some sheets and towels as well as a few pieces of plastic dinnerware and some cleaning products.  Their new landlord had told them that they could use an old futon mattress of his to sleep on, and the previous tenants were leaving a few things that they might also find useful.  At least they knew that they wouldn't have to sleep on the floor.

Scott and Sarah, the previous tenants, were slow movers, and so Bryan and Jane ended up parking their car, laden with everything they had in the Southern Hemisphere, at their new place and

 walking to Easter Vigil Mass.  Had it been a regular Sunday Mass, Bryan and Jane would not have been too surprised to be leaving the church just over an hour after entering, but for an Easter Vigil, which generally takes two or more hours, blinking into the sun at 6:40pm was not what they had expected.  Filled with the light of Easter, Bryan and Jane made their way the mile back to their new home.  Scott and Sarah were shoving the last bits of their material lives into a beat-up Fiat as they walked up the street.  With those two gone, their new landlord Greg led them into what was now, officially, their place.

*For those interested in the truly unusual, check out either the Wikipedia entry or the web page of Bryan and Jane's landlord Greg Hallett.* 

9 to 5 or 6

After nearly two weeks of apartment hunting, car shopping, and sightseeing, it was time for Bryan to start his first job. His father had joked with him that he thought that he would never live to see the day when Bryan would no longer be a student, but twenty-two years and six months after he first set foot in a classroom, Bryan was about to embark upon his first day of work. He had had summer jobs, of course, but this was his first permanent job - one that he had to report to nine hours every day, five days out of every week. He would now have to get up early every morning and sit at a desk all day; quite a change from his easy, flexible days as an applied math graduate student. One consolation that Bryan had, one thing that helped him ease into the working world from the grad school world was the informality of his new office's dress code. His jeans would not have to be reserved for the weekends, and tucked-in shirts would not be required, a small comfort.

Much like Jane imagined he acted on his first day of school, Bryan woke up very early on March 17. His first day of work was St. Patrick's Day, surely an auspicious sign of the good things to come. He dressed in a new outfit that he had bought in Chicago weeks before he had left: a polo shirt, khaki pants, and a new pair of dress shoes. The dress code at Industrial Research Limited was a loose one, but Bryan wanted to look nice on his first day. Jane reminded him as he dressed of a Dilbert cartoon in which someone informs Dilbert that customers don't trust an engineer who dresses well - the worse dressed you are, the smarter they think you are. Bryan tucked in his shirt anyway.

Without his usual Sports Center to watch, Bryan had to content himself with a New Zealand morning show on TVOne. It being St. Patrick's Day, Breakfast had a roaming reporter stationed at an Irish pub in Auckland that had begun selling it's first Guinnesses at 7am that morning. This reporter even talked to one man who had already had three pints of Guinness and was preparing to head off for his day of work. It seems that every part of the Irish diaspora celebrates in style . . . or at least drunkenness. Bryan's beers would have to wait until the evening, though, because he was off to work by 8am.

Little Red Wagon

Since they had landed in Auckland, Bryan and Jane had been told that they would need a car. The city of Auckland is a sprawling metropolis, or at least as sprawling as a city can be with only 1 million people in it. With only a mediocre bus service and ferries connecting the two sides of the city together, Bryan and Jane knew that if they wanted to see more of the city than what was within a mile or so of their apartment, they would need a car. And so they spent several days walking through used car lots trying to decide on their right-hand-drive car.

Before coming to New Zealand Bryan had been enchanted with the idea of owning a vintage Mini. As if his American Miata wasn't a small enough car, the compactness and character of the original Mini intrigued him and now that he found himself living in a former British outpost, it became the car that he decided would be his next toy. Every time a Mini crossed their paths, Bryan always pointed it out and said, "Now wouldn't that be a great car to drive around in?" Of course, he recognized that it wouldn't make a very practical every-day car; for that, Bryan and Jane went to the Asian importers.

Because of strict emissions laws, most Japanese car owners replace their cars every four years, selling their old car to Australian and Kiwi importers. Like the former British colonies, the Japanese also drive on the left, so their cars are perfect for the ANZ market. The one thing about Japanese cars that Bryan found a bit disturbing was the tendency of Japanese drivers to trick out their cars: big stereos, race-car seats, spoilers, and lots of other little extras that made almost every car look like it had been on an episode of "Pimp My Ride."

Car lot after car lot, Bryan and Jane circled around the Toyotas, Hondas, Subarus, Holdens, Fiats, and Fords peering in the windows to see the car was automatic or manual. Before they were married, Bryan had warned Jane that her Saturn would be the last automatic she would own, and she had sold that car off on a snowy night in Chicago in late February.

They were at first looking for a Subaru (pronounced Sue-bar-ou by Kiwis), but it turned out that they did not age well in the Pacific. The last Subaru they test drove was missing chucks of its body, and Bryan felt that it did not handle well. It was all rather unfortunate for the salesman who had been helping them, for he thought that he was going to have a sale that day, but as they drove back to the lot, Bryan and Jane both knew that they would not be going home with that car. All of the car salesmen they had met thus far had been pleasant, non-aggressive people - so unlike American used-car salesmen. They allowed Bryan and Jane to walk around their lots and did not pressure them to buy a car they did not like or try to get them to look at cars outside their price range. The salesman at Buy Right Cars was no different, but he had been looking forward to selling a car to the two Americans. Not to be defeated, the salesman invited them to look around a bit more and see if there was anything else they might like. "We've got a manual Toyota at the edge of the lot that you might be interested in," he informed them.

Mostly to humor the friendly salesman, Bryan and Jane checked out the red Corolla wagon. Bryan had been of the opinion when they began their car search that there were only two types of cars worth owning: a two-seater or a wagon. As they neared this particular wagon, Bryan and Jane also noticed that it had a sunroof, another one of Bryan's car desires. It was also not as tricked out as many of the other Japanese imports they had seen had been. During the test drive, Bryan further found out that this little wagon had a lot of power. Bryan and Jane left the lot after the test drive, but they returned four hours later to buy the red Corolla wagon. The Mini would have to wait.

Waiheke Island

As the day for Bryan to begin work drew nearer, Bryan and Jane decided to spend some of their remaining free time exploring the more resortish aspects of Auckland. Finding a beach or a bush to walk through are not difficult even from the center of town. Go fifteen minutes or less in any direction, and you will be in the middle of nowhere with nothing but lovely vistas around you. On one particularly sunny day, Bryan and Jane decided to head a little farther afield than they had thus far been and hop a ferry to Waiheke Island.

Waiheke Island lays about 17 km across the Hauraki Gulf from the city center, just beyond Rangitoto Island. Heavily populated for a Gulf Island, Waiheke boasts a thriving art community and is a popular destination for international tourists looking for a couple days on the virtually deserted beaches. To get there from Auckland, Jane and Bryan boarded a ferry in the harbor along with what seemed to be a traveling cadre of British biddies. These women (it could be gleaned from their conversations) had left their husbands behind in Bristol, Kent, and Sussex to come out and enjoy the tail end of New Zealand's summer. What a post-imperialist would have to say about them! They all worried out loud about how their men back home were getting on and laughing that at least they didn't have any washing up to do while in their own private paradise.

The ferry ride lasted for about half an hour, moving swiftly through the salty water passed inferior islands that don't have ferry docks. Landing on Waiheke, Bryan and Jane picked up a map and decided to take the two mile walk to the Mud House Winery. Waiheke, it turns out, is home to several wineries. Though not as prolific as those in Hawkes Bay or Marlborough, the Waiheke wineries put out decent wines at fairly reasonable prices, but their main attraction is their magnificent location. Following a series of deserted roads up the mountainous terrain of the western edge of Waiheke, Bryan and Jane came upon the Mud House Winery. The humble entrance to the winery belied the beauty that existed within. Walking up the dirt road surrounded by grape vines, Bryan and Jane came to the heart of the Mud House: two house-type dwellings, one offering wine tastings and the other a restaurant. Bryan and Jane entered the first of these buildings, blinking as their eyes adjusted from the sun, and were greeted by a friendly woman behind a counter. This woman then proceeded to tell them a little about the winery and got them all set up for a wine tasting. Having never done a wine tasting before, Bryan and Jane were a bit self-conscious as she poured out the seven different wines, describing the scents and flavors that could be found in each as well as a bit about the process that went into making them. To Jane, at least, they all just tasted like wine, some better than others, but she could not pick out the many things she knew she was supposed to be sniffing and sipping for. Bryan, however, did not seem to be as flustered, offering up comments to the woman behind the counter after each glass.

Having drunk their $5 worth of wine, Bryan and Jane reemerged into the sun and walked around the winery and its vineyard, the beauty of which can really not be described. Up a hill to look out over the entire island and back down again, passing fully ripened white and red grapes as they returned to the path that would lead them back to the road.

As they had walked up to the Mud House, Bryan and Jane had noticed a sign tucked between some bushes that announced a tramping path to Blackpool Beach. Intrigued by this sign and the indiscernible path that was promised behind it, Bryan and Jane left the main road and set off into the bush of Waiheke. It turned out that this tramping path was not for the faint of heart. It went first straight up the same hill that Bryan and Jane had climbed in the winery only to immediately send them back down it. On the way down, they encountered obstacles in the form of barbed wire fences and horses; it seemed that the path had lead them onto someones private property. Trying to rectify the situation, Bryan and Jane set off down a muddy path alongside a wooden fence that looked as though it headed to something that looked like a beach. Knocking brambles off their socks and pushing past palm branches, Bryan and Jane found themselves on the promised beach. They walked the length of this beach back to a main road, which took them to the center of town.

Now to say "center of town" is a bit misleading, as the center of Waiheke consisted of two cafes, a video store, three real estate agents' offices, a vegetable stand, and a cleverly-signed butcher shop. But there was a sign prominently displayed along the main street that pointed in the direction of a beach. Bryan and Jane decided to check this beach out as well, and so headed in the direction indicated by the sign. Little did they know that this sign would lead them down the steepest walking hill known to man, with switchbacks periodically placed on the way down so that you could actually walk it. The beach at the bottom, however, made up for the difficulty in getting down to it. White sandy beaches, only a few people dotting the shore, and about a dozen boats anchored about 100 yards out to sea. As they walked along this beach, Bryan and Jane saw that the British biddies had also found this hidden treasure (though they probably took the bus to get there).

With the sun beginning to set, Bryan and Jane took the road back to the ferry. As they traveled back to Auckland proper, it began to sprinkle. "We left just in time," Bryan said. And indeed they had, for it began to rain harder as they made their way from the harbor back to their hotel.

Ki te ingoa o te Matua

One of the nice things about being Catholic is that you can walk into any Catholic Church in the world and know what is going on, no matter what language is being spoken or what the church itself looks like. Bryan and Jane had been to many Catholic churches in their lives and did not expect to be too surprised by anything they would find in Auckland. After all, this was an English-speaking country with ancestral ties to Britain, just like the US. They figured that there would be some differences, but no more than you would get in the US going from parish to parish. Some people like rock-influenced music and some think that any instrument besides an organ has no place in a church; some priests use their homily time to perform deft acts of literary criticism on biblical passages while others like to start and end with a joke; and, of course, there are churches where it's so quite you can hear the little kids fidgeting under the pews and others where the you fear that the stained-glass windows are going to shatter with the force of the congregation's participation. This was the spectrum along which Bryan and Jane anticipated finding the Catholic Church in New Zealand. What they actually found, however, was quite unexpected.

By law, there are two official languages in New Zealand: English and Maori. Maori are the native peoples who sailed from the Polynesian Islands to New Zealand sometime in the fourteenth century. Today they make up about 18% of the total population of the country, outnumbered as a minority group by both Asians and Polynesians. Still, as the original New Zealanders their culture and their language are protected by the government in Wellington. Instructions and some signs are printed in both English and Maori, much like Spanish in the US, except that in the US, there are a lot of people who actually speak Spanish.

With this in mind, it should not have surprised Bryan and Jane to be standing in St. Patrick's Cathedral in central Auckland and be greeted with Ki te ingoa o te Matua, o te Tamaiti, o te Wairua Tapu. Amene. Confused at first as to what was going on, they soon realized that the priest was leading the congregation in the sign of the cross in Maori. The priest, of South African origin, was leading a congregation that was 80% Asian and 20% European (with 2 Americans), in the Irish-immigrant built St. Patrick's in Maori prayers. Talk about your multiculturalism. This must be the face of the new Church.

The rest of the service continued on in English, and Bryan and Jane were comforted to see that Auckland churches pulled their musical repertoire from the same Glory and Praise book that many US churches use: plenty of Marty Haugen and David Haas. Much of the service, in fact, was familiar to Bryan and Jane, living up to the Catholic claims of uniform universality. That is until they got to the Nicene Creed. The Kiwis, it turns out, use the same translation of the ancient Latin text as do their British cousins. Jesus is not born of the Virgin Mary, but made became incarnate; and he did not suffer, die, and was buried, but suffered death and was buried. Small changes that don't change the meaning of the Creed, but it is enough to throw off the rhythm of something you've been intoning for over 25 years. The Our Father they found to be different as well. Kiwis ask God the Father to save them from the time of trial instead of asking Him to lead us not into temptation. Again, not really a significant change in terms of meaning, but enough to make Bryan and Jane feel like poinsettia-lily Catholics. It looked like going to church was something else they were going to have to adapt to.

Sorry for the delay . . .

We've been experiencing some technical difficulties out here in Auckland that have prevented regular postings to this blog. My computer has decided to stop accepting a charge, and so, to conserve the tiny bit of battery power left, I have been unable to access anything on my computer, including the pictures that are so essential to maintaining this blog. As I've now been about two weeks without my computer, and with little hope of getting it fixed soon, I will continue to put up posts, and the pictures will just have to come later. Sorry to all of our regular readers who have been without an update in quite a while; we're glad you enjoy reading about our adventures and misadventures!

What It Means to Live on an Island

As every graduate of elementary-school science classes can tell you, islands are created when the shifting of Earth's plates cause underwater volcanoes to shoot liquid rock to the surface of the sea where it cools and hardens. Volcanoes, thus, are a vital part of island life - the whole island's reason for being, so to speak. Volcanoes also, however, can be a destructive part of island life because they don't just skulk back to their watery homes after giving birth, but they stick around to shake things up a bit every now and then. On an island, you never know when a long-dormant volcano will reawaken or when a previously unknown spewer of lava and ash will arise to surprise us all.

Bryan and Jane had known all of this when they arrived in Auckland, but it was not until they took a trip to the Auckland War Memorial Museum that they realized just how much a part of their lives volcanoes now were. The Auckland War Memorial Museum is located in the center of the Auckland Domain, a large park situated between the center of town and the suburb of Parnell. It hosts exhibits on both the natural and human history of New Zealand, including a film strip that explains how the Age of Reptiles ended due to a giant asteroid, ushering in the Age of Birds. Yes, that's right - the Age of Mammals did not follow the Age of Reptiles in New Zealand; it was not man who inherited the Earth, but birds: lots and lots of birds.

Besides the surprising overlordship of the birds, the Auckland Museum also runs an exhibit detailing Auckland's special relationship with volcanoes. The Auckland region is home to 48 known volcanoes; the most recent eruption being Rangitoto 600 years ago (the ash from this eruption could be seen as far away as Rome). But, as the cruel exhibition repeatedly pointed out, you never know when the next one will be or where it will happen. One corner of the room housed a television with an imaginative news alert announcing that a volcano had erupted covering downtown Auckland in ash and taking the homes of Parnell and Mission Bay on a lava-ride. "That's my office, right there where that bubbling lava is," Bryan said, pointing to the images in the alarmist TV program. "You better hope we're at home when that volcano blows."

After learning about the awesome power of volcanoes to shape Auckland's history, Bryan and Jane decided they needed to see one of these monoliths in person. They chose to check out Mt. Eden, Auckland's largest volcano at 196 meters high or 643 feet. The trek up to the top began with a steep staircase, which appeared daunting at first but paled in comparison to the open road that actually lead to the top.

Close to the top of the volcano were a series of craters, the biggest one dipping down 50 meters or 164 feet. Due to erosion concerns, people are not allowed to walk down into the crater, but you are allowed to peer in from the top.

Upon reaching the top, Bryan and Jane were greeted by hordes of Japanese and British tourists who had taken the easy way up: buses. Views from the top were exquisite, taking in the surrounding suburbs, other volcanoes, and the bay.

Going down the volcano, Bryan and Jane stumbled upon a small herd of cows. "Are those wild cows?" Jane asked, confused as to why and how there came to be cows living freely on the side of a volcano. It seems that there are in fact 15-20 cows, left to graze on the volcano by the city. They wondered if the cows knew just how much danger they could potentially be in, living on the side of a volcano. The cows, however, didn't seem to mind.

Beer and Bowlers

Auckland is a diverse and friendly place - the kind of city where you can go from towering buildings to secluded beach in a matter of minutes with people giving you directions and pointing out interesting points along the way. Bryan and Jane took some time in their first week in New Zealand to explore the variety of Auckland.

They began their explorations by walking to the University of Auckland, where Jane was hoping to make some connections with their history department. To get to the University from the center of town, you first have to walk up a steep hill and then cross through a park filled with trees that look somewhat like giant spiders. In the center of the park stands a statue of Queen Victoria, for whom, it seems, the students have very little respect. The University itself is what anyone coming from the US would expect: some neo-classical architecture intermixed with awful, awful buildings from the 1970s. Why they allowed architects near universities in the 70s, we may never know.

After touring the university, Bryan and Jane traveled a little further afield to see what was going on in the suburbs. The suburb of Ponsonby is known for its arty yuppies and personal trainers. Bryan and Jane were drawn here because Bryan had read of a Belgian beer bar there, and with his love of beer, they had to check it out. The bar was not difficult to find as it was located at the very top of Ponsonby Rd, the place, supposedly, to be seen in Auckland. The bar itself did not disappoint either, especially when Bryan and Jane ended up with free beer. A fire, it seems, had broken out in the office space above the bar as Bryan and Jane sipped their Belgians, and when the bar had to be evacuated, the staff told them that there would be no charge. Bryan was very glad that he had opened a tab instead of paying when he picked up the beer.

Bryan and Jane's journey through Ponsonby took them by the Ponsonby Bowling Club. Now, Bryan and Jane are avid, though not necessarily skilled, bowlers as many people will attest, and so they found this "Bowling Club" intriguing. Was it indeed a place where people came to roll balls down an alley, knocking down as many as 10 pins at the end? Luckily, there was a slit in the green-tarp covered fence, and Bryan and Jane were able to peer into the club. What they saw was not what they had expected. There was a wide expanse of green lawn with small white squares laying on the ground on either end. As they watched, a largish croquet ball rolled gently into view. "Ha, ha, beat that!" crowed out a remarkably posh British accent. A woman in her early 70s came into view, and when she saw Bryan and Jane standing at the fence, she called out to them, "Do come in and have a look."
So Bryan and Jane walked around the side of the building and entered through a small door that led them into what looked with a hall where people go to play bingo and chain smoke. This room gave out onto the lawn they had seen from the street, and when they reemerged into the sunshine, they could now see that there were two women in white holding balls while a bevy of older men looked on. Bryan and Jane took up posts sitting next to the largest of these men, and through puffs on the butt of his cigarette, he tried to explain to them what was going on. "Ye' see, they roll the balls down the pitch, trying to get as close as they can to that one out there but not so close as it makes it possible for the other one to squeeze in." Bryan and Jane nodded sagely, though neither one really understood what he was talking about.
The two women seemed to know the rules of the game, though, as they skillfully launched their balls down the lawn to the jeers and cheers of the men sitting behind them. It was a "battle of the sisters" Bryan and Jane were told - a very civil affair with an undercurrent of sibling rivalry. After many minutes of watching, Bryan and Jane thanked the British retirees for allowing them to witness bowling close up, and they left just a little more wiser than they had gone in.

Keep Left

With their apartment hunt at an end, Bryan and Jane decided to dedicate the remainder of their time before Bryan started work with some sightseeing. Their first order of business was to get a rental car. Bryan and Jane intended to buy a car of their own soon, but in the meantime they needed a way to get around - and a car that was not theirs to attempt driving on the left side of the road with first. Like much of the rest of the former British Empire (as well as Japan for some reason), Kiwis drive on the left, or the wrong, side of the road. A danger to visiting pedestrians and a confusion for American and European drivers, driving on the left is an art unto itself. Left turns are the easy ones, and right turns hard; roundabouts take the place of four-way stops, and there is a whole lot more car to your left than you're used to in the US.

Jane was actually looking forward to the mirror-effect driving because she hoped that it would tame Bryan's driving, at least for a bit. Bryan was always a much more cautious driver when he felt slightly uncomfortable, and driving on the other side of the road should make him uncomfortable. Or so Jane thought. Bryan eased into the left side of the car and, like a fish swimming along with the current, Bryan flowed along seamlessly with the native left-hand drivers. After only a few days of sunning his right arm instead of his left, Bryan was back to his old driving habits: weaving in and out of traffic and setting his own "reasonable" pace. Bryan and Jane's friend Amy had told them that she was glad to see them leave the country if only because it would make the streets of Chicago safer.

Bryan told Jane that he couldn't wait to get their own car. The automatic they rented just didn't give him as much control as the manual that he wanted would. Keep left indeed.

So Very Far Away

The night Bryan learned that he had been offered a job with the IRL in Auckland, he and Jane went out to celebrate at Nevin's Pub. Over burgers and Guinnesses, they discussed the pros and cons of moving halfway around the world. Jane had a two-week-old Sheil bulletin in her bag, and on the bag of this pink leaflet, they plotted out their thoughts. On the pro side was an exotic location, an interesting job, a chance to have an in depth experience of a foreign culture but one in which English was still spoken, and a good time to try something new: they didn't have children yet and both careers were pretty flexible. The con side consisted of adapting to a new place and dealing with immigration, living in a more expensive place, Jane's potential difficulties with getting a job, and, of course, the distance from family, friends, and everything they knew. When they boiled down their lists to the essential points that were of most importance to them, it was a battle between a cool place to discover and being so very far away. It took them a little over a week to decide that, though it would be difficult to be so far away, they wanted to see something new.

In making this decision, Bryan and Jane both acknowledged that there would be moments when being far away would seem like an overwhelming burden, when they could feel, in the very depths of their beings, the vast ocean that separated them from the world they had always known and those they loved. What they didn't suspect at the time was just how quickly this sense of distance would visit them.

They were almost through their first full week in New Zealand, when Bryan and Jane called home to update their families on their progress with finding a place to live and getting settled in. Jane took her shower while Bryan typed his family's phone number into their Skype homepage and connected with the phone lines in the US. Freshly cleaned for the day, Jane emerged from the bathroom to find Bryan sitting on the bed in the hotel room staring at his computer with a stony expression on his face.

"Is everything alright?" asked Jane fearing that something terrible had happened.

"My family was just getting back from Pop's funeral. He died a few days ago," Bryan said flatly. "We are so very far away, aren't we?"

Bryan's grandfather had not been doing well for a while, and when Jane and Bryan had talked about moving to Auckland, the possibility that they would miss the funerals of family members had come up, but they had thought that that particular situation would not arise for some time. Now they were confronted with the true reality of the downside to moving to New Zealand: missing the chance to say goodbye to those they loved and to support their loved ones who were left behind.

Bryan and Jane held each other and cried. "He's in a better place," Bryan remarked, "but it is still sad." Bryan understood why his family had delayed in telling him about his grandfather's death, and though he wished he could have been there with them to say goodbye to his Pop, he knew that he was still connected to them all despite the distance and was with them in spirit if not in person. Bryan knew that his family was excited for him to be in Auckland and that they were proud of him for setting off on such an adventure, but at that moment he knew what it meant to be so far away.

Bryan and Jane request that those who read this blog take a moment to say a prayer for the soul of Cyril Kuhl, that he is rejoicing in heaven.

The Hunt is On

For their first days in Auckland, Bryan and Jane had arranged to stay in the Formule 1 hotel in the center of the city. Though their room there was small, it was a decent, not very expensive place to stay and, most importantly, it had internet access. Its exact location may have left something to be desired as next door to the hotel was a chain sex shop. But they would not be here long, they thought, because they were in search of more permanent lodgings.

Bryan and Jane's hunt for a place to live had begun before they had even left the US. In the weeks before their move, Bryan and Jane had spent some time looking through the property listings on the Kiwi equivalent of Ebay, TradeMe. It had seemed, from a distance, that they should be able to afford either a nice apartment near the center of the city or a small cottage in one of the farther-out suburbs; the pictures online looked nice, and they began their search with much optimism. The reality,however, was not as pretty as it had looked in the pictures.

Bryan and Jane decided not to meet with any real estate agents until they had some clean clothes, and those came through, with Air New Zealand's apologies, two days after they had arrived. Freshly bathed and in clean clothes for the first time in four days, Bryan and Jane set out to find a place to live.
Their first foray took them to North Shore City, the collection of suburbs to the north of Auckland, accessed by either ferry or a single bridge across the Waitemata Harbour. The landscape in the suburbs of Takapuna and Milford was beautiful: volcanic beaches giving way to white sand and awe-inspiring views out on the water. Bryan and Jane took the mile-long rock-strewn path along the beach between Takapuna and Milford while on the quest for housing. If only the residences had been as nice as the environment, they thought wistfully.

The weekend saw Bryan and Jane in the slightly less picturesque surroundings of the inner suburbs attending a series of open houses. The first two apartments they saw were nicer than those in North Shore City, but not quite enough to tempt them. Like Goldilocks, though, the third apartment they saw was just right. Located on the lower level of a two-level house, the apartment is a one-bedroom with study on an open plan. For Bryan and Jane there were two factors that drew them to submit an application for this particular apartment: its address in Parnell, with Bryan's office less than a mile away, and its large deck overlooking the Parnell bush and a bay. The current tenants didn't move out for two more weeks, so Bryan and Jane would have to continue to live a la traveler, but they had, at last, found a place to call home.

Fush and Chups

Emilio picked Bryan and Jane up at the airport in his fiance's station wagon. "Plenty of room for your luggage," he told them. The weather was much different from that Bryan and Jane had left behind in Chicago: around 70 degrees and sunny. There was a little bit of rain, but Emilio explained to them that it rains often in Auckland but not for long, an observation that held true as the rain stopped just a second after you noticed it.

"You must be tired," Emilio said as they drove out of the car park, "but you may like a little tour of Auckland. I'll drive around a bit if you don't mind." Bryan and Jane assured him that they didn't. Emilio drove them down the windy roads of the suburbs of Auckland and pointed out the important parts of the landscape: the race tracks and the roads to the beaches. Horse racing is very popular in Auckland, Emilio explained, chalking this popularity up to New Zealand's not-so-distant agrarian past. Beaches, of course, are popular the world over, and Auckland is blessed with dozens of them within a very small radius around the city. Emilio himself lives in a suburb called Mission Bay, just blocks from one of the beaches closest to downtown Auckland.

Continuing on with their introduction to Kiwi life, Emilio took Bryan and Jane out for some fish and chips, or "fush and chups" as it's pronounced in New Zealand. Their tasty, fried bits of Commonwealth culture came wrapped in newspaper and extremely hot. Emilio suggested that they take their lunch to the beach, where there was a entle breeze coming off of the Waitemata Harbour, the harbor that connects Auckland to the Hauraki Gulf of the Pacific Ocean. Bryan, Jane, and Emilio were not the only ones to think that the beach was a good place to eat lunch. They were quickly joined by a large flock of white and brown seagulls as well as a small family of wren-like birds. Bryan made the mistake of dropping one of his chips in the sand, and ten seagulls quickly pounced and then kept a watchful eye on Bryan's slippery fingers. While they were protecting their lunches from the snapping beaks of the gulls, however, the wren-like birds moved in. One even got as far as jumping into Jane's newspaper wrapping and standing on her fish; it took a small scream and a flick of the hand to get it to go away - though it didn't go far. "The birds here are very cheeky," Emilio explained. "They're not afraid of people, and they love to eat." There are so many things for Bryan and Jane to learn about their new home.

Paging Passenger Smith

Fiji's airport consists of eight gates surrounding a small commercial island of souvenir shops where one may purchase brightly colored shirts, tiki ornaments, and duty-free alcohol. One wall of the airport - or airroom perhaps more appropriately - is made entirely of glass that looks out over a volcano and the lush countryside of Fiji. This is the wall that Bryan and Jane navigated to after leaving the plane that had carried them across the International Date Line. That flight had gotten in at 5am local time, so Bryan and Jane were able to watch the sun rise over this tropical paradise. There's some political unrest in Fiji right now, but you wouldn't know it from the airport. Everything there is serene and a little sleepy.

Jane and Bryan are feeling a little sleepy too as they try to get comfortable in the plastic chairs and wait for their next flight. Any ideas of a leisurely layover, however, are dashed when over the intercom comes the following message:
"Paging passenger Smith, Mr. Bryan Smith, could you please report to gate 7?"

Reporting to gate 7, Bryan and Jane learn that, though they had made their connecting Air New Zealand flight in LA, their baggage had not. "I'm afraid your bags are still in LA," the efficient Fijian tells them. "I'll get in contact with LA and have them sent out on the next flight to Auckland. They should arrive a day after you do."

And so Bryan and Jane boarded their flight to Auckland with the knowledge that when they landed, they would have no luggage. Jane saw the brighter side of this situation: "At least we don't have to worry about whether or not Emilio's car will be able to fit us and our luggage." Emilio was one of Bryan's new colleagues at Industrial Research Limited, and he had volunteered to pick Bryan and Jane up at the airport when they arrived in New Zealand.

The plane ride from Fiji to New Zealand took four hours - Bryan and Jane's shortest flight yet. Upon landing, they stood in the "Other Passports" line with people from all over the world, except, it seemed, the US. Australians and Kiwis, as New Zealanders prefer to refer to themselves, got to go through an expedited line. New Zealand and Australia, Bryan and Jane learned, share a special relationship, similar but closer than that between the US and Canada. With their US passports, though, Bryan and Jane were sent to the other line. After getting their passports stamped, Bryan and Jane proceeded through the rigorous Kiwi border patrol, who protect their country from such dangers as foreign bugs and alien seeds. From there, after 27 hours of travel, Bryan and Jane entered New Zealand for the first time.

Crossing the Date Line

"You ready for another one?" Bryan leaned over and asked his wife of just over a month Jane.

"Another one I think I can handle," she replied, "it's two more that I'm not so sure about."

Their flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles had gotten a late start, and Bryan and Jane would have only an hour and a half to make their connecting flight to Fiji. From Fiji they would then catch another flight that would take them to their final destination, Auckland, New Zealand. Neither one of them had ever been to New Zealand - Jane had never seen the Pacific Ocean - but when Bryan found a job online with a research firm in Auckland, it had seemed like just the kind of adventure they'd like to go on. Exotic location, but still English-speaking; an interesting job for Bryan that would give him some industry experience after his decades in school and a nice retreat for Jane to finish writing her own dissertation. Sitting on the crowded 767 for five hours, though, had given them just the right amount of banal reality to make the impending adventure seem real and a little daunting.

A cranky Delta stewardess informed Bryan and Jane that the Pacific Airways flight to Fiji left from terminal 2 - the international terminal. Unfortunately, upon arriving in terminal 2, sweating from the excursion of their over-packed carry-on bags, there was no flight to Fiji; "No Pacific Airways flights at all," a jolly security officer told them. "What you want," the officer explained, "is an Air New Zealand co-chair flight: that's on the other side of the airport, terminal 4." Rushing along as fast as their laden computer bags would allow, Bryan and Jane reached the Air New Zealand counter twenty minutes before their plane was due to take off. "When do you return to the United States?" asked the interminably slow ticket counter worker. "Not for a while," answered Bryan, "we have two-year work visas. We don't need a return ticket." Though the ticket counter worker did not seem to be completely convinced, he allowed Bryan and Jane to pass through anyway, taking their baggage numbers, issuing them boarding passes, and wishing them a good flight.

Once inside the plane, Bryan and Jane settled in for the second leg of their trip. Periodically, a map would appear on the screens strategically placed around the cabin, detailing the path that the plane was taking: lots of blue punctuated by tiny dots as they flew within 100km of tiny islands most Americans have never even heard off. There was no turning back as the garrulous lights of LA faded away. Bryan and Jane dosed on and off over the 11 hour flight, but both were awake to mark the passage of the little pixeled airplane as it crossed the jagged edges of the date line. Tuesday, March 4 had just completely disappeared; they were in the future now.